


Old Wounds and New Spirits

by Medie



Category: Captain America (Movies), James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Community: rarewomen, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-09 23:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>odd that she should become the ghost now that he's rejoined the living</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Wounds and New Spirits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VelvetMouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelvetMouse/gifts).



Bond's American contact, Leiter, is the one Fury sends to tell her. She ought to be furious about that. The man's had his successes, she engineered the best of them, but he's an underling still and they both know it. 

She says nothing as she listens. There can be nothing of the past in this moment now, no matter how much her eyes burn and her throat constricts. She can only be M. The woman she was is years dead, resting in the same watery grave that Steve's now been resurrected from.

However much he's been granted a miracle, she cannot allow herself the same. 

Odd that she should become the ghost now that he's rejoined the living, but fitting all the same. 

Bond's standing before her when she next looks. She's no idea how long he's been there, or what he's read in her face and it's that thought which distresses her most of all. A damning commentary, she supposes, on the person she's remade herself into. The sharp pain which stabs at her now has more to do with an unguarded moment than a man lying half a world away, six decades too late for a night's dancing. 

Still, she welcomes it anyway and gives herself permission for one single moment's indulgence.

She'll take more than that anyhow. 

It's a peculiar thing, the way she's learned to feel about Steve. She's loved men before him and after him, she's sent men to their death by the proverbial dozen, but none have occupied the same space the way he did.

She harumphs to herself at the thought and the flood of sentimentality that comes with it. 

Bond smiles in answer.

It's a sly thing, that smile, but there's something of a naughty boy in it and she draws in a breath. Years now without him, years spent learning not to see him in the face of every man willing to fight and die by her command, and now she should find a shadow of Steve in a man so unlike him as to make the comparison ridiculous. 

Particularly since the genuine article is, again, drawing breath and doubtlessly annoying Fury to no end. She recalls the frustration that, more often than not, had all but permanently etched itself into Colonel Phillips' face. 

Pity she can't buy the man a good brandy; he certainly earned it. She's never more understood the truth of than now with James bloody Bond standing before her.

"Something the matter, ma'am?" Bond asks, words smooth and distant enough that she almost misses the impatience goading them forth. He's never managed to stand the unease of her silence for long and it's galling that she should be so reassured by it.

She considers the reports before her. "A great many things, I should think." 

It's difficult to keep a dispassionate face and more a struggle to will away the rebellious thoughts than it has been in years. Her fellows have always thought of her as a bean counter; superiors and underlings both. To them, she's nothing more than an accountant. A glorified calculator in a skirt more concerned with her numbers than their gut instincts as if instinct mattered one wit in the end.

She prefers the cold comfort of information, data, despite the knowledge her analytical choices would damn her. She's never cared for that. She was passionate once, spirited in an unchecked sort of fashion, and it neither saved Steve's life nor her reputation from similar criticism as she faces now. 

Hell with that. 

Bond sits. His grin's given way to a shrewder, considering expression that unsettles her all the more. He's sorted out precisely where her thoughts are taking her and damn him for that perceptiveness. 

It's there that the true similarity between him and Steve is to be found. They've seen her, the both of them, and she's rewarded them despite herself. 

Dispassion has become her touchstone, but neither of them have been fooled by it. True, yes, she's sent men to die before and will do so again, perhaps even the very man before her, but she will not do so foolishly. Such a sacrifice is not to be taken lightly, be it by Queen, agent, or man about town. 

She's known the loss of being left behind and she'll not throw good lives away on a whim.

Damn them both for seeing it. 

"You should go see him." 

Bond's voice is gentle in it's own way. Warm. She's never heard such a tone from him before and she doesn't know if she likes it. 

She looks at the papers before her, thinks of Steve waking up to a world so changed as to be unrecognizable, and shakes her head.

"No, I don't believe that I should." 

It would be cruel to face him now and present what she's remade herself into. 

"You've nothing to be ashamed of," he says, but neither of them truly believes herself to be worried about that. "If that is the problem."

"It isn't, but thank you for that nonetheless." 

Phillips liked brandy, but she's always preferred bourbon. She produces a bottle of it now. It's one of the luxuries she still permits herself when she walks these halls and a lesson from those early, heady days.

Bond takes the glass without question or comment. Raising it in equally silent salute.

M does the same. 

She's loved and lived well in the years that she's been without Steve. She doesn't regret learning to make room for someone else, treasures the life she built around his ghost (however much her children might believe otherwise), but she doesn't think that he could do the same. 

Well, even if he could, she's no intentions of asking.

"Wouldn't work at any rate," she says, into her glass. "The man's an international celebrity."

Bond hums thoughtfully. "Would make secret liaisons a challenge." He puts down his glass. "And there's the matter of sharing."

She raises a brow. "Never were particularly good with that, were you?"

"Never saw the need to be," he demurs. "Served me well thus far, I should think." 

Damn the man and his honesty anyhow. 

She refills their glasses and settles back in her chair. This would be the moment to turn the conversation away from uncomfortable ground. It would be easily enough done and Bond would hardly blink an eye. 

She doesn't. 

"I've missed him," she says, instead, "but I don't think that I've felt it until now." Bond opens his mouth to speak, but she snaps a look his way. "And who the hell told you about any of this anyway?"

Bond's eyes glimmer. "You'd be shocked, M, at just what the Americans will put on the internet."


End file.
